Thursday, December 27, 2007

Christmas Eve was really rather quiet at work which was a real pleasure. We got out on time which for us means an early night. Jo and Darce met us at our place, we picked up pizza and headed into King's Park for our traditional Chrissy Eve. Barb and her brood were meeting us there and we had picked the new playground as our meeting spot.Barb had taken the kids there a few weeks back and apparently it's pretty amazing. There's a huge rope climbing frame, a wooden fire engine, a pirate ship and castle, flying foxes, the lot.Let's just say the kids enjoyed themselves immensely.Up until the climbing frame...

It's a pretty huge frame, its about ten metres high and is made from proper rope - not that bendy rubber junk most climbing frames are made from. Anyway, the kids and I were having a climb, testing our courage.Well, I was at least. The kids didn't seem to be too bothered by the height.Darce scampered almost all the way to the top and was standing in the middle on the second highest platform. She had been up there for a while, insisting she was fine when I noticed she was crying. Chiara had been hanging onto some rope and bouncing up and down causing the whole frame to move significantly. This scared the absolute shit out of poor Darce and she just froze. I asked if she wanted one of us to climb up and get her and she all she could do was nod through her tears.At this point I was already halfway up but already past my comfort zone. I could have probably reached her ok but getting down with her was an altogether different matter. So Christian volunteered to go to my niece's rescue and monkeyd his way up to her.It was just the sweetest thing. Once he reached her he made her hold on round his neck and then he inch by inch worked his way downwards, always making sure that Darce could reach the next rope without feeling too scared.I think I fell in love with him all over again.

Yes, I know, it's a tad soppy but this was coming from the Iceman who doesn't ever really show what many would call 'human emotions'. I have every right to be soppy!

Anyway, so Christian was now Darcie's (and everyone else's) hero and my poor hubby is getting annoyed with me telling everyone I see the story. I don't think that will change anytime soon!

So Christmas was a really nice day. It was rather quite compared to our normal huge family day. It was just Christian, Jo, Darce and I until that night when we'd be going round to Barb's.Jo and I watched Hairspray while Christian and Darcie played the new Simpson's game that Darce got for Christmas.

It was very quiet and very relaxing and I really enjoyed it even though it was a bit hot.

But if I thought Christmas had been hot, boy did Boxing Day surprise me.And everyone else in Perth.It reached 44.2C or thereabouts and we were officially the hottest place on Earth that day. It was also the hottest December day ever for our little city.It was absolutely nasty.After a day spent boiling at the Lake, Christian, Barb and I headed to the movies with Mel to see The Golden Compass. It was there that I was brutally reminded of another downside to having such hot weather. Air con just doesn't cope in extreme heat. It was so hot in the the cinema that I couldn't sit still. I fidgeted the whole way through and every time Christian put his hand on my knee I'd swat it away like a wasp. I just couldn't stand being touched it was so hot.I was so irritable by the heat that I almost had a full on temper tantrum when they ended the movie a good six chapters before the book finished. What happened to the rest of the story??? The ending in the book is a much better ending for the movie that the mediocre conclusion they filmed.Grrrrr. It makes me mad!

The next morning my irritability was soon erased after a message that was left for me on Facebook.Now, for someone who spends so much time on this interweb, I seem to have done a good job of avoiding all those sleezy kind of back-alley sites. I tend to spend my time in respectable company like the MoH crowd (*sniggers slightly*). My point being that I'm still rather naive.So imagine my surprise when I discovered I had this message on Facebook.

hey annettelook i might be miles off the mark but when yu say on your profile you like random play, would you explain cause im a young irish guy and im just over in perth for a year and i am attracted to married women, and you are beautiful if you wanna have a little secret give me a message back and we can go for drinks or somethingRobbie :)Riiiiight.I must say I was actually shocked. I was actually in awe at the nerve. I was flabbergasted.I emailed Christian to share with him my adventure and all he could reply with was 'He he, go Facebook!'. Gotta love the support...

I am also looking for advice on if I should reply to this message with a scathing reply (maybe something like 'Punctuation and grammar go a long way when picking up chicks') or just ignore it completely.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Ok, maybe I was already there, but I'm certainly more insane now than I was two weeks ago.

The reason? My neighbour.

Andy, our delightful neighbour who lives directly across the road from us isn't exactly the ideal neighbour. Sure he seems friendly, waves when you're watering the garden, doesn't cause any trouble and seems to get along fairly well with everyone around. Unfortunately he has this...annoying habit that is the cause of my marbles going missing.

Andy likes to play music.

But he'll only play one song at a time.

Over and over.

For hours on end (and no, I'm NOT exaggerating)

Loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear.

Andy has a wide taste in music - he'll play anything from ACDC to folk music to kiddie nursery rhymes. Of late his song of choice has been a foreign language folk song that has lots of cow bell in it and has an eerily similar tune to Advance Australia Fair. Before this, for the longest time he would only play a Country and Western song which I guess to be called All you ever do is bring me down. When the children next door to him request it, he'll also play How Much is that Doggie in the Window or The Chicken Dance Song.

When we first moved in it took us a little while to figure out what was going on. You do kind of tune out the noise from around you but after a while your consciousness will prod you in the back of the head and say 'Oi, you can't ignore that any longer - it's the same song being played over and over!'.It's amazing how mad it actually drives you.

The fact that I've been on holidays for the past two weeks and have been at home more than I usually am has really compounded the issue. You notice it all the time.

The problem I have is that I don't really feel like I can say anything to him about this. The volume he plays it at may be loud enough for us to hear it but I don't think it's actually anywhere near the volume of which you can make a complaint about. Add to this is the fact that not so long ago (before I moved in but I'm sure while my Dad was living here) Andy had a stroke. So I do wonder if this has affected his memory and he doesn't actually remember playing the song so he'll play it again. And then lastly, everyone else on the street has been here much longer than us and so it feels kind of rude for it to be the relative newbies on the street to complain. I'm pretty sure someone at some point must have said something anyway (out of everyone living in the area I'm sure someone has snapped in the past) so I don't think it would really do me any good.

The silver lining is that my holidays are over now and I go back to work on Monday so I should start to regain what little of my senses I have remaining to me.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Rightio chaps, big post for you today, and I mean BIG. As in so big Acci's computer may have a slight mental breakdown. I have lots of photos and also a video for you, in which you can hear my lovely voice. This should appease my Father as he had a bit of a whinge the other day that none of us brood are uploading many photos lately. So, Dad, this is for you!

Okie, so first of all, I'm on holidays. Yaaaaaaaay! Ever so excited. So far I've done lots of Christmas shopping (although not much posting of pressies so some will get overseas rather late), I've spent time with my sisters, watched several romantic comedies and have probably put on about four kilos since I've been eating junk and not much else.But hey, that's what holidays are for!

On the first Saturday of my break I attended my final work do of the year which was a day at the races with my old branch. I don't really enjoy the races much although it was more fun this year as we won a bit of money. $170 makes any day more fun :-)I didn't get a lot of pics of that day but here are the few I got.

My and K-Lee and her rather over-sized hat.Oh yes, that's better, push it more upwards. Now she can see!!!K-Lee, myself and my team leader Heather. None of us actually work at my old branch anymore but we all went to the function. I was told I was going and wasn't given a choice, Heather went last year and so was invited again this year and K-Lee just invited herself along. But we all had fun so that's what's important.My older sister Jo and I have been planning for a while now to go to The Pinnacles. It's a bit of a drive and I hadn't been before so why did we really need any other reason?We set off early this morning and it wasn't long before Darcie got very, very bored in the car. She had a colouring in book to keep her amused but as per usual with kids, that only kept her occupied for about ten minutes. We hadn't even hit GinGin before she was asking if we were there yet.

Anyway, so we eventually got to the park and Darcie got to have her first adventure of the day. Using 'Hole in the Ground' toilets for the very first time. For those of you not familiar with this contraption, it looks almost identical to a normal public toilet but there's no flush mechanism or toilet bowl, just a metal shoot heading down into a pit. It's pretty standard for loos out in the middle of nowhere with no easy water source nearby but it can be a little unnerving the first time you use them.Perhaps it's the draught.Or wondering what's going to crawl up out of the pit.Or Darcie in the cubicle over wondering out loud how many babies have fallen in.

We were just lucky that it was actually a cool day (not typical for December here) and it didn't smell...

Anyway, so we headed off into the park and started to drive around the track, stopping here and there to take photos.I apologise now if you don't find rocks very exciting.

Darcie and I in front of one of the Pinnacles. Jo doesn't do photos so she refused to let me take one of her and Darce.Darcie's photo of me. She loves taking photos and I must remember to give her my old digital camera one of these days.Umm, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Cos I'm sure you know what I'm thinking...The Pinnacle Queen waves down upon the serfs.Oooh, more rocks!I can't remember who it was who told me this, but someone once said that going to the Pinnacles is a little like being on the moon. I found this to be a really adequate description except that it's yellow...It's a little like a graveyard actually.Today was actually very cold, which is very odd for December. When we were planning the trip we were expecting temps in the high 30's, early 40's but we all took jackets and wore them most of the day.The clouds really added to the atmosphere though.It's amazing how far the desert stretches. You just wouldn't believe it as you drive into the park, surrounded by scrubland and bushes.The Pinnacle Queen telling us to hurry back to the car so we can go to the beach.Darce wasn't actually as sulky as she looks here but she was playing at being the Pinnacle Queen, ordering us to get in the car right this intsant.We couldn't help but stop at the lookout and take some more photos.Surprise, surprise, more rocks!The Queen and the Ninja. I didn't realise I was wearing both my Ask a Ninja hat and t-shirt until half way through the day.Dammit this little girl is getting heavy. I can hardly pick her up any more.No matter how big she gets, Darcie hasn't lost her love of the camera.On our way out, I found the real Pinnacle Queen!After the Pinnacles we drove down into Cervantes and stopped off at the bay there to have lunch. The photos really don't do the place justice, you just needed to be there to see just how green the water was up close to the shore and how aqua blue it was out deeper.Nettie warned it would be cold...Quit saying 'Told you so!'

This is a video I took and even the video doesn't do the place justice. It was at this point that I remembered the video function on my camera and cursed myself for not remembering sooner. I would have loved to have taken one of the actual Pinnacles instead of fifty thousand photos!

Ok, well that's about it for now. Hope all your puters survived the trip to the Pinnacles with me and that you're happy with the post Dad!Bye for now :)

About Me

If I could be any animal I chose, it would be a wolf.
Wolves are pack animals, fiercely loyal, they protect their own.
They mate for life, love to play and don't take themselves too seriously.
The life of a wolf is a good one.